A Week With The Avengers
by K. A. Carlyle
Summary: Just a normal week on the SHIELD helicarrier with the Avengers. Well...as normal as it gets, anyway. Will be a series of seven one-shots. Rated T for mild language!
1. The ACDC Incident

**So...this should be fun. I came up with the idea two days ago, and I've been meaning to start on it ever since. This chapter is kind of a test run. I'll see how it does. **

**We are operating under the assumption that Coulson never died.**

**That is all.**

* * *

Tony Stark sat at his desk in the lab, twirling a pen between his fingers. The Avengers had spent a full three weeks on the S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier, which now seemed to be serving as their own personal base...for lack of a better option. After all, the top-secret S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters had kinda fallen into a massive sinkhole over two months ago. But being stuck in a flying tin can was pretty much the recipe for disaster when the Avengers were added, considering their histories.

The others had their own problems. But Tony felt that his was more important than figuring out how to use a computer, or attending training sessions, or keeping his anger levels down. He was bored. And when Tony Stark was bored...shit got real.

With a conspiratorial twinkling in his eye, he stood and went over to one of the lab's interactive computer screens, pulling up a set of data with a flick of his wrist.

This would be fun.

* * *

"Hill?"

"Director Fury."

"Can I get an explanation of what the hell is going on here?"

Maria Hill walked up beside the Director, opening and closing her mouth several times and narrowing her eyes in confusion. "I have no idea, sir."

"Well, whatever it is, make it not be there in the next five minutes, or you'll find yourself without a job, agent."

Maria nodded fervently, dashing away quickly. "On it, sir." Raising a hand to activate the communicator in her ear, she barked, "Coulson. Find Stark. Now."

There was a grumbled reply from the agent, then he took off to find Tony.

* * *

Clint Barton, who had been listening to the entire exchange from a corner on the ship's bridge, tapped the communicator around his wrist. "Guys," he called into it. "Come down here. You have _gotta_ see this..."

* * *

"I...oh, my." Steve Rodgers paused as he walked onto the bridge, squinting out the front windows in disgust and raising his hands to cover his ears. "Is that what I think it is?"

Hawkeye nodded. "Yes, Cap...I do believe it is."

"Is Stark drunk again?" Bruce Banner piped up from the doorway. Both turned around to see him standing there, along with Natasha Romanoff, who did not seem particularly impressed.

"Not that I'm aware of," Hawkeye replied, beaming as he turned to gaze back out the window reverently.

Music blared on the bridge, drowning out most of the conversation, but the men continued to yell at each other so they could be heard.

"WHAT HAS THE MAN OF IRON DONE, LEGOLAS?" Thor boomed, stepping into the room.

Hawkeye silently brought his open palm to his forehead, cursing Tony's name under his breath.

"Did Stark do the music, too?" Natasha hollered, causing them all to turn and face her.

"Unfortunately, Agent Romanoff," Director Fury agreed loudly from nearby. He added quickly, "don't you all have better things to do?"

Slowly, each one shook their heads. Several shrugged.

"Nope," Clint insisted loudly, grinning like an idiot. When Fury turned to glare at him, he quickly scuttled off, followed by the other Avengers, until a very annoyed Director Fury was left alone at the bridge, shaking his head slowly in disbelief.

* * *

Phil Coulson walked into the lab with a set frown across his face and a clipboard of papers in his hands. "Stark!" he snapped, poking his head into the room. Upon seeing the man standing in front of a desk, grinning at his work, Coulson entered, shaking his head like a disappointed father.

"Coulson!" Tony beamed, throwing out his hands in a gesture of welcome. "Shall I call you that? Or are we on a first-name-basis now, 'Agent'?"

Phil was not amused. "Turn it off, Stark."

"You can't turn off genius, Agent."

Phil exhaled a patient sigh, tapping the clipboard in his hand against the desk. "_Now_, Stark. I have direct orders."

Tony rolled his eyes, turning to look out the window of the lab over the flight deck. "Fury needs to lighten up," he announced. "It's not like I'm doing anything-"

He broke off, listening as an incoming transmission electrified the communicator on his desk.

"Tony," Hawkeye's voice called, somewhat distorted through the sounds of laughter and blaring music, "this is the greatest thing I've ever seen in my life."

Coulson frowned. "What's going on, Stark?"

Tony shrugged, raising his eyebrows momentarily. "Oh, I don't know. I just...maybe programmed my suits to do aerial maneuvers in front of the bridge windows to AC/DC. No big deal."

Agent Coulson opened his mouth to launch into a lengthy speech on the responsibilities of being a superhero, then stopped himself. "Nothing I say will make you think any differently about this, will it?"

"No."

"So I'm just wasting my breath."

"Yep."

Coulson threw his clipboard into the air, ignoring the papers as they scattered across the lab floor. "I'm done with you, Stark. Get your shit together and turn it off so the ship doesn't crash or something, and we'll forget this ever happened."

As he stormed out, Tony muttered, "but why the hell would we want to forget _this_?"

* * *

Tony appeared on the bridge ten minutes later, having taken his time getting up there. When he arrived, three S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and five Avengers greeted him, all with a wide variety of expressions adorning their faces.

"What are they doing here?" Tony asked, grinning broadly. "Did everyone come to see the show?"

Fury sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I don't know, Stark. I told them to leave. They came back."

Tony nodded, beginning to feel slightly better about himself as he noticed Hawkeye biting one of his knuckles to keep from snickering out loud.

Fury waited for Tony's full attention before continuing. "Any other stupid-ass ideas, Stark? Or can I count on you to keep your musical tastes to yourself from now on?"

"That would be two yeses, Director. But I think I can safely say that that exact thing will never happen again."

"See that it doesn't," Coulson muttered, walking past with his head down.

Tony waited for the man to leave, before clapping his hands together briskly and grinning up at the Director. "So what do we have on for tomorrow?"

* * *

**Please don't ask me where this came from, because I can assure you...I have no idea. I just got this weird image of Tony programming his suits to do water ballet or synchronized swimming or something...and then it turned into this. Heh. Whoops. **

**And there are six more where that came from. If people like it, that is. ;D**

**- Carlyle**


	2. The Trouble With Tribbles

**I'm excited for this one. Star Trek lives again! But I must warn you that if you're not familiar with the concept of 'tribbles,' you probably won't understand what on earth I'm talking about. Just Google it or look them up on Wikipedia...they're quite funny little creatures. Perhaps...picture Pygmy Puffs, Potterheads. **

**Alliteration is amusing. **

**Anyway. **

**Enjoy (Responsibly)!**

* * *

Coulson had been so excited when Bruce had mentioned being able to produce tribble DNA. He had really only wanted to know what they looked like in real life, being the Star Trek fan that he was. But he had never expected it to go this far.

Nick Fury stood on the bridge of the helicarrier, the deepest frown imaginable set on his face. A vein popped out of his neck in rage, and his jaw clenched tightly as he ground his teeth. "Out," he barked, shaking as if he might explode by moving. "Get them out of here. I want them off of my bridge. NOW!"

Ten SHIELD agents immediately began bustling around the bridge like bees, moving as fast as they could, which was about the speed of a person walking through moving water.

You see, they were all about up to their chests in tribbles.

"Sir, I'm terribly sorry, but I can expla-"

"You will be explaining nothing, Coulson." Fury's good eye was beginning to twitch. "I'm going to my office to be away from these things. And when I come out, Coulson, I had better not see a single one. Clear?"

"Yes, sir." Coulson had paled considerably.

"But..."

Nick Fury snapped his head around, just in time to see Natasha Romanoff enter the room.

"Oh, come on, Director. They're so cute!" She lifted one from the floor and held it up to her face, scratching its fur as if it were a puppy.

"It's not a pet, Agent Romanoff," Fury snapped, shaking his arm sharply as another of the creatures managed to attach itself to his sleeve.

"Then what would you say it is?" she replied irritably, setting the tribble back down among the rest.

"A disease," Fury spat, at the exact same time Coulson said, "an alien cotton ball."

There was a sudden loud whistling noise from out in the hall. All three people turned to face the doorway, just as Clint Barton rounded the corner. The tune he had been whistling spluttered out into silence as he caught sight of the bridge.

"What did I miss?" he asked cheerily. "The attack of the alien cotton candy?"

Of course, Tony Stark chose that moment to come in, as well. After all, as far as he was concerned, nothing could happen on the helicarrier without him around. At least, nothing _good._

"Was this Loki or something?" he asked immediately, hardly seeming fazed by the sight of what appeared to be thousands of brown and white cotton balls rolling across the floor and cooing like the flock of Pigeons from Hell.

Natasha shook her head, ginger curls bouncing. "Nope. This can be owed entirely to your dear friend Bruce Banner, with a special guest appearance from Agent Phil Coulson."

Tony grinned, wading through the pool of tribbles to clap Coulson good-naturedly on the back. "Congratulations, Agent! Even I couldn't have successfully pulled off a stunt like this! Ingenious..."

Fury frowned at him pointedly. "I'm leaving here, now!" he announced loudly. "Get. Them. Out."

It was impossible for the four others not to snigger as Fury began wading away through the endless pit of colored pom-poms.

"Are we allowed to have a snowball fight with these?" Tony asked casually, lifting one of the white tribbles in his hand, "or is that considered animal abuse?"

Natasha quickly snatched the creature from Tony's fingers, growling at him from deep within her throat. "He didn't mean it," she cooed to it. "No, he didn't..."

Hawkeye scratched his head, taking a long look around him. At last, he muttered, "well, I could always use them for target practice, if we need a use for them..."

Natasha let out a tiny squeak.

"Joking. I'm joking." he narrowed his eyes in thought, then said, "You know how Fury just replaced that cell? The one that drops straight out through the floor when you hit a button? That thing's pretty big. I bet they'd all fit in there."

Natasha lunged for him suddenly, her fists pounding at his shoulder. "You-" she grunted, "Can't...simply...eject..."

"Better idea!" Tony announced loudly, causing Natasha to freeze mid-punch and all heads to snap around towards him. Tony waited another moment before continuing; "there are air ducts in here...right?"

"Yes," Clint replied immediately. Tony raised an eyebrow in mocking confusion.

"Long story," Clint and Natasha monotoned in unison. Bruce, who had just waded into the room, snickered.

"Anyway..." Tony continued, looking thoroughly disturbed by his colleagues, "I've got a great plan..."

* * *

Nick Fury sat in his office, shoes propped up against his desk, with a newspaper in one hand and a coffee in the other. Every so often, he paused in his reading to simply close his eyes and enjoy the sound. It was a wonderful sound: the sound of Tony Stark _not _setting off fireworks in his helicarrier, and of Phil and Maria _not _breathing down his neck, and of Clint and Natasha _not _dogging his heels in search of something to cure their plague of boredom. It was Nick Fury's favorite noise: _silence_.

During one of these rare moments of silence, Fury paused in his listening, a deep frown crossing his face. There was something making noise above him. He opened his eyes from the solitary place he'd found in his head and peered at the ceiling. Nothing out of the ordinary...

Just then, the rumbling in the ceiling increased in volume. The Director got to his feet reluctantly, muttering under his breath, as it continued to grow louder. Then, at that moment..._bang! _

Fury jumped back as the grate over the air duct in his ceiling suddenly snapped away and hurtled towards the ground, narrowly missing his head. There was a loud clang, then all was silent once again. Except...it wasn't. Fury's frown deepened as he stepped underneath the open duct, still clutching his coffee in one hand. Wonderful. Now he could hear those ridiculous tribbles from all the way over here.

Or, at least, that's what he thought.

So he was thoroughly surprised when one tumbled out of the ceiling with a surprised squeak and landed right in his cup of coffee. The liquid splashed up over the lip of the mug and stained the front of his uniform a disgusting shade of mud-brown.

"STARK!" Fury roared.

Through the air duct, the sounds of uncontrollable laughter reached his ears in answer.

"'Get the Avengers together,'" Fury hissed in a mocking voice. "'It'll be great,' they say. 'It'll be fun,' they say. 'Stark won't be a problem,' they say. Last time I listen to anyone but myself while making a bad decision..."

But it didn't end there. Just as Fury had grabbed the tribble from his coffee - gingerly, as though he were handling a piece of particularly unsavory laundry - and dropped it in the waste-bin beside his desk, another rolled down from the open vent. Fury made a low growling sound within his throat, then looked back up at the ceiling. The rumbling was back. But why had two tribbles made such a loud noise...?

He got his answer almost immediately. Two more tribbles bounced down, landing on his shoes, and began to coo furiously. Fury kicked one off in annoyance, thinking up a list of the most unpleasant thing he could find for the Avengers to do for this-starting with a rather gratifying image of Iron Man using his suit to clean bugs off the helicarrier's windshields-when he looked up and nearly fell over from shock. The tiny balls of fluff were raining from the sky! Fury's cry of surprise was muffled by a mouthful of tribble fur as they covered his face, blocking his vision, and continued to flow into the room like the Waterfall of Death. Fury choked out several curses aimed at Clint and Natasha, as he could now hear their laughter ringing through the air ducts as well, before realizing that he should be trying to escape before...no, too late. The tribbles were high enough by now that the door handle was covered by them. Fury waded through the mass of fur, still spewing a fluent string of expletives, and began to dig for the doorknob. Tribbles went flying as he flung them aside in his frantic search for a way out. He was like a kid in a ball pit, considering the way he had to wade through the waist-high pool of the creatures.

By now, the cooing was infuriating. Fury would have been ripping out chunks of hair at this point if he had any to speak of. "Are you proud of yourself, Stark?" the Director demanded, twitching spastically as another tribble bounced through the air duct and hit him squarely on the head.

"In my defense, your honor," Tony wheezed through his laughter, his voice ringing in the air duct, "you did say you wanted them off the _bridge._"

* * *

**Tony's got a point. Fury needs to work on his sentence phrasing. **

**Did you guys like the tribble idea? I've got something coming up that's similar to the idea of Avengers Text Messages, but it's also fairly different...and yes, that will be another chapter on here. I've got rough ideas for each chapter, so I shouldn't have too much Writer's Block trouble. **

**In other news...Iron Man 3 is almost here! Anyone else excited for it? Here's a better question: anyone else going to the midnight premiere?**

**- K. A. Carlyle**


	3. Attack of The Green Abomination

**Day three with the Avengers...finally. Wow, this took a while. I had it on tab, I just...forgot. XD Since this probably won't get updated again any time soon due to finals, I figure I should probably go ahead and do this now. Enjoy responsibly.**

* * *

"Fury. Your green abomination is making a ruckus."

Director Fury picked up the radio on his nightstand, blinking wearily. "Natasha, I thought we agreed that before four o'clock in the morning, he was _your _green abomination."

There was a long silence, followed by, "yes, sir."

Fury rolled over and went back to sleep.

* * *

Natasha would have had her work cut out for her anyway, just trying to get Banner to calm down. But with Tony and Clint sniggering in her ear the whole time, it was hard.

"Can you two shut up?" Natasha demanded, barking into the communicator furiously.

"I do not see what is so amusing." Thor's voice boomed through the device, causing Natasha to grip her head in pain.

"Damn it, Thor. You don't need to scream into these things. The point is that I can hear you without you yelling at me from the other side of the ship."

Thor lowered his voice, but only slightly. "This mortal technology confuses me greatly."

"That makes two of us," Steve muttered darkly.

"Cap-sicle!" Tony greeted. "Gee, now it's a party. Who brought drinks?"

"That's it. I'm turning this thing off," Natasha announced threateningly.

"I'm afraid that's against regulations, Agent Romanoff," Maria Hill piped up icily. "You need to be able to receive incoming transmissions."

Natasha cursed under her breath, instead settling for turning down the volume on her communicator. She adjusted the cuffs encircling her wrists, trying to simultaneously block out the noise of Clint's laughter in her ear.

"Shut up, all of you!" Natasha demanded. There was a cacophony of noise, until Natasha finally gave up and muted the device.

Well, it wasn't _off,_ strictly speaking.

* * *

Natasha had thought that reasoning with the Hulk would be easier than this. After all, he had been relatively reachable before. But now there was nothing for him to...well, to put it in his own words, "smash," so it was harder than ever for Natasha to convince him that she wasn't there to hurt him.

"Hulk...smash?" Banner asked, reaching up to scratch the side of his head with a trash can-sized paw. Natasha backed slowly up to the wall. Fortunately, SHIELD had built Banner a new lab of the strongest materials available to them, so they were all safe as long as he didn't try to leave the room. Natasha wasn't entirely sure what had made him angry enough for their massive green friend to make a guest appearance, but she guessed that it had something to do with either Tony or Clint.

"No," Natasha told him firmly. "No smashing, Bruce. We're the good guys. We're your friends. You just need to calm down."

Banner seemed to have no intention of calming down.

"This shouldn't be too hard," Clint announced through Natasha's communicator. At some point, it had come back online automatically, and Natasha had gotten the brilliant idea to put it on speaker so the Hulk could listen to a set of more familiar voices.

"Yeah," agreed Steve bitterly. "It's like trying to talk to Tony when he's drunk."

"Hey!" Tony's indignant whine piped up.

By this point, Banner was staring confusedly at the device. His eyes narrowed slightly, and he reached up with a massive green hand to scratch at his head.

"Hulk...smash?" he questioned again.

"What is with you and the broken english and third-person pronouns, buddy?" Tony retorted. "You're supposed to be a genius."

"Hulk smash man of iron. Man of iron like tin can."

Across the ship, Tony paled slightly, going completely silent. Clint was laughing too hard to notice.

In a moment, Bruce was on the move. Natasha let out a loud noise of surprise as the Hulk's green fist came shooting towards her head, then dove out of the way as a window shattered and shards of glass began raining down around her. The communicator fell out of her hand and went skittering across the floor like a scared mouse.

Natasha's vision went blurry for a moment, before she jumped to her feet and began to run out of the way. Hulk or no Hulk, Banner was going to have to sort this out for himself. She snatched up the communicator on the way past, then took a flying leap through the broken window, narrowly missing the Hulk's green foot as if came down inches behind her head.

"Ah, yes. The brave act of chickening out. Used by our ancestors for generations."

"Shut up, Stark!" Natasha roared into the microphone, still sprinting down the hall. Massive footsteps shook the ground behind her as the Hulk gave chase.

_Wait. _

Natasha whirled around, not sure she was believing what she saw. She spoke monotonously into the communicator: "uh...guys. The Hulk is loose."

* * *

"I think this is technically Thor's fault!"

"MY FAULT, SON OF BARTON? I DO NOT BELIEVE SO."

"Would you two just shut up for once?"

"And you get tired of _me_ talking."

"Shut up, Stark."

"Same to you, Mr. Freeze."

There was no shortage of bickering as the Avengers reassembled in the lower flight decks of the Helicarrier, all together in one room for the first time in a long while. Banner's confused, sluggish movements gave them an advantage...but not much of one. He was quickly getting used to the idea of being chased around by four vaguely familiar people in spandex suits. And Iron Man.

"Everything's Thor's fault!" responded Clint. "Example A: last week we had that Pop-Tart incident-" Barton's sentence was cut off as Thor let out a roaring stream of many long, incoherent words.

"Oh, yes, excellent strategy. When in doubt, blame the immortal storm god. You're _so_ not getting electrocuted for that one," Tony announced sarcastically. Natasha sighed and clutched at her head. By this point, Avenger-Induced migraines were a perfectly normal occurrence in her daily life.

There was an awful lot of fighting. The Hulk kept smashing his fists into everything, growing more and more delighted with his work until his face bore an expression that seemed to say that his birthday had just come early. Tony, not sure what the best strategy for "annoying the crap out of Banner" was, started by flying circles around the Hulk's head, until he was snatched out of the air by a massive green fist and hurled none-too-gently towards Clint, who was laughing maniacally and suddenly found a good reason to stop as both he and Tony crashed through a nearby window. Steve had his shield stolen multiple times, at last watching in dismay as Bruce tossed it up into the rafters of the ship and it disappeared from sight. Steve screamed at the Hulk until his throat was hoarse, but without his shield, he was hardly a threat, so Bruce used his best strategy for defeating the mighty Captain America: ignoring him.

It was about an hour and several broken bones later when Phil Coulson sauntered into the room as if nothing had happened. "Banner," he greeted casually, dipping his head to the massive creature. Thor watched the Agent enter the room with an expression of pure bewilderment across his face. Coulson ignored the stunned expressions of the Avengers around him as he walked straight up to Bruce, kicking aside a broken piece of Iron Man's suit as he went. Clint heaved himself back up through the broken window at last, but then, upon seeing the uninjured figure of the Hulk looming over him, began to inch back down into the lower room he had come from.

"Here, just a moment. Please stand still, Banner..." Coulson took a small device about the size of a golf ball out of his pocket and pressed a button on it, placing it on the ground beside the Hulk's feet. Curious, Banner picked it up...and immediately toppled over as it administered an electrical shock strong enough to stun a horse.

"Don't even ask," Coulson said, taking the device out of Bruce's hand as he began to shrink back to normal size. "And get back to work, all of you! You can't just be expected to stand around when there's training to do!"

Five stunned faces watched as Coulson stepped through the elevator and allowed the doors to close behind him without another word.

* * *

**And now for an author's note from some dear friends of mine, Lestrade and Sherlock: **

**...****_and exactly how many times did Clint fall out of the window?_**

**_Oh, it was all a bit of a blur, Detective Inspector. I lost count._**


End file.
